California’s new migrants following the work

Why would anyone want to leave California? That’s easy: To find a job. Nowhere is this fact clearer than in the southern regions of the state, which in recent years have seen something like the migration depicted in “The Grapes of Wrath,” only this time played backward.

This trend shows up in IRS data tracing movements of tax filers from state to state over the past decade. A new study by the Manhattan Institute, focusing in this data for California from 2000 to 2010, shows how the drive for a better life, for so long a westward quest, now starts at the coast and runs east – into the interior of California and out of the state from there.

This pattern is most dramatic in Southern California. Los Angeles and Orange Counties, with 36 percent of the state’s population at the beginning of the 2000s, accounted for 40 percent of the state’s total of roughly 800,000 in net out-migration (that is, the difference between outflows and inflows from other states) over the following 10 years.

The Inland Empire counties, Riverside and San Bernardino, also had an outsize share of out-migration – 13 percent compared to a 10 percent share of population. The story was the same in San Diego and Imperial Counties. They had 9 percent of the population and accounted for 11 percent of outbound migration.

Where were these people headed? For migrants from the state’s southern regions (basically, from the Tehachapis to Mexico) regions (Los Angeles-Orange Counties, San Diego and San Bernardino-Riverside) the top destination was Arizona, followed closely by Texas. Net out-migration to Arizona was 160,173, or 20 percent of the region’s total; 156,076 went to Texas. The ranking in outflows alone (not offset by people moving to the state) was similar – 304,606 to Arizona and 303,639 to Texas. In both outflows and net migration, Nevada came in third, with an outflow of 239,029 and net out-migration of 128,631.

Migration out of state is only part of the picture, however. The eastward push is also strong within California. In fact, it can be said that the population wave sweeping toward Arizona and Texas starts at the beach. During the 2000s, the inland regions boomed while coastal urban areas barely grew at all. Los Angeles County’s population increased by just 3 percent. The county had net domestic out-migration of more than 1.1 million, according to the state Department of Finance, and it gained only about half a million from foreign immigration. In other words, it would have shrunk by about 600,000 were it not for natural increase – births minus deaths.

In contrast, Riverside County rose by 41 percent, netting 26 percent of that through domestic migration alone. San Bernardino County rose 19 percent, and a similar boom was occurring east of the Bay Area (San Joaquin County was up 21 percent, Yolo up 18 percent). The reason was no secret. The further one went from the coast, in general, the cheaper were the homes. And during the 2000s (as in the decade before) builders put up plenty of homes in the inland exurbs, where land was still plentiful and the locals didn’t recoil at the idea of growth.

The promise for these in-state migrants was similar to the same lifestyle dream that drew so many to the state in their parents’ and grandparents’ generation – the good life, a house with land in a benign climate at a price they could handle. The price for many was a brutal commute to jobs that still hugged the coast, where the managerial class could still afford to live. In a more dynamic and business-friendly state, this would have been only a temporary problem. In a more dynamic economy, the jobs would have migrated toward the workers.

The Inland Empire, especially, is rich in highway and rail infrastructure that make it an ideal place for manufacturing and logistics. The migration of a large labor pool to the region should have made it even more inviting.

But the business and jobs haven’t moved, at least not to inland California. Their preferred destinations have been east of the Colorado River. The latest unemployment statistics for cities and metro areas tell the story. In July of this year, the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area had a jobless rate of 12.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That put its employment performance in 355th place among the nation’s 372 metro areas. In all, 13 of the bottom 20 areas – that is, those with the highest unemployment – were in California, all inland. Texas metro areas, if not leading the nation, were doing far better. Austin-Round Rock was in 61st place with a jobless rate of 6.4 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth was 117th at 7.4 percent, and Houston was 126th at 7.5 percent.

Some inland Southern California cities that boomed as exurban bedroom communities in the 1980s and 1990s now have some of the worst unemployment in the region. August jobless rates reported by the state Employment Development Dept. included 14.7 percent in Moreno Valley, 15.1 percent in Rialto, 15.2 percent in Hesperia, 14.2 percent in Victorville, 16 percent in Hemet and (in inland Los Angeles County) 13.9 percent in Palmdale and 15.7 percent in Lancaster.

Faced with a choice between waiting fruitlessly for a job near home or pulling up stakes to work at that new plant in Round Rock, the decision really isn’t complicated. It’s goodbye to the Golden State. When skilled people with an appetite for hard work are doing this en masse, policy makers should be worried. That is, if they notice. California’s political elites are people of the coast, not only in where they choose to live and work, but in their fixations as well. They can worry all they want about rising sea levels, but the fact that much of the state has become the 21st-century economic equivalent of the Dust Bowl is worth their attention, too.

Gray is the author, with Robert Scardamalia, of “The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look,” published by the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership.